Why are GeForce FX's so cheap??? Are the no good??

[Sprocket]

Are GeForce FX's like a lot worse than GeForce 4 Ti's and Radeon 9700's/above??? I mean, I thought the GeForce FX's were going to be like really good or something. I haven't read any reviews on 'em or anything. The last time I saw anything about 'em was before they came out... But then I saw one for $83!!! And I was like WHOA, I got my GeForce 3 for $70! So what's the deal? Is this just a really good buy (at ExcaliberPC) or should I not get it? (See I'm just going on the basis that this low price must mean poor quality)

[makatee]

Don't get them..A quick answer, is that the ATI cards out now kick GeforceFX's cards as*.

[Twisted]

they have gotten some bad rap for the cooling system. it takes uip 1 pci slot and even then it still is slower than the 9800 in most respects

[Colin]

Some GeForceFX's are cheap, some are expensive.

Top of hte line or budget, they all share the GeForceFX nomenclature. It's the model number after that determines the speed of the card.

You most likely saw a GeForceFX 5200 which is about the same speed as a GeForce4 MX440.

[CCW]

for the price you say, itll be a 5200 as the guys above pointed out, i borrowed one from work and they are crap, barely scrape 8k in 3dmark2001se with the below rig (see sig)

Core: 270
mem: 200 (400)

so the same as a mx440 gf4 but with directx 9.0 support

even the "big boy" FX cards are worthless and take a good kicking from the lower clocked radeon 9800

[Major]

Budget buy right now would be a TI4200, for a little more the R9500pro would be a "minimum" recondmendation.

I've had a dozen nvidia cards all the way to the TI4600 and loved them all, but right now the Radeon is the way to go.

I had a BFG 5600 256mb for about 3 weeks just to play with, it would only do 11,500 3dmarks on a machine that did 14,500 with a R9500pro (stock) and it cost $50 more for the hype !

[Adam Harvey]

Hello I am with CCW, I also borrowed one from my work and they are junk. I traded in a ATI 9000 64mb for the BFG GeforceFx 5200 and it just sucks. I was getting 6700 on 3dmark. I was hitting over 10k with a TI4400. I am with ATI from now on.

Adam

[Sprocket]

wow, so the 5200 is only as fast as a geforce 4mx 440? My Geforce3 card should be faster than that. I might look into getting a ti4200, soon I hope.

[gokickrocks]

i have a bfg 5200 in one of my other rigs...if you consider being slower than the g4 mx (i was comparing it to my another rig of mines that had a nf2 w/ the built in gpu), then yes it is "as fast"

[SPQQKY]

nVidia fell off the deep end with the FX series, but are promising some nice things with the NV35. We'll have to wait and see.
I will not buy another ATi, I have had three die on me when just running default speeds and have never had an nVidia card die on me, no matter what I throw at it.

[Keeper]

They are betting the DirectX 9 compatible FX will sell the card no matter how slow it is.

[Sprocket]

Originally posted by Keeper
They are betting the DirectX 9 compatible FX will sell the card no matter how slow it is.

So whats the advantage of DirectX 9? Something to do with all that "Cinematic" stuff? So, none of the ATI cards have DX9 effects?

[Adam Harvey]

Everyone keeps saying the 5200 is DX9 but why is it my BFG isn't or is it?

From what I know of the top end cards were only DX9.

Adam

[PimpJack]

Sprocket: All ati cards from 9500 up are dx9. The best deal is a saphire 9500 non pro with 128mb mem arranged in a L shape like the 9700. U can turn that particular 9500 non p into a 9700 simply by getting a hacked driver and a bios flash if u want overclocking. 5 min of software work and u have a $300 dollar card. My bros was doing 10k and with the mod and no oc it jumbed up to 14k 3dmark. With oc he is now hitting 17+k with his $140 9500

[Keeper]

As slow as the cheap FX cards are, there would be no advantage, even when some DX9 stuff is out.

[Royal Oaks]

Originally posted by Sprocket
wow, so the 5200 is only as fast as a geforce 4mx 440? My Geforce3 card should be faster than that. I might look into getting a ti4200, soon I hope.

I would go with a 9500 Pro if you can. They are really worth the money, and believe me once you play games with AA and AF turned on, you won't wanna go back. I don't know specific prices between certain cards now a days, but I can say that the 9500 Pro is a superior card to anything nVidia has to offer today. You might even be able to land a used 9700 for cheap. You can also get the 9500 card PimpJack is talking about. However, if you are a little leary of changing it to a 9700 then you might wanna just go with the 9500 Pro. Don't know how Xtreme you are, but if I was buying today I would probably go with PimpJack's idea.

[Sprocket]

Originally posted by PimpJack
Sprocket: All ati cards from 9500 up are dx9. The best deal is a saphire 9500 non pro with 128mb mem arranged in a L shape like the 9700. U can turn that particular 9500 non p into a 9700 simply by getting a hacked driver and a bios flash if u want overclocking. 5 min of software work and u have a $300 dollar card. My bros was doing 10k and with the mod and no oc it jumbed up to 14k 3dmark. With oc he is now hitting 17+k with his $140 9500

Whoa! That sounds like a GREAT idea! But how does it work???? His score jumped from 10 to 14 just with the hacked driver and bios flash??? And then with OCing he got to 17K??? I mean, I get the OCing part, but not the first... How could simply getting a hacked driver and bios flash make the thing run faster???? And if I do decide to do this, do I have to get that exact 9500 non-pro version made by Saphire??? Or does is work with other non-saphires... and does it work with pro's??? I guess I just need some more explanation.

I'm going to be upgrading soon to
1700+ WPMW 0310
NF7-S rev2
256 pc3200 Twinmos - x2
slk-900 and 92mm Vantec Tornado

I plan on trying to get at least an OC to 2.3ghz and very hopefully 2.5ghz. I've never really OCed anything before, so I'll prob be needing lots of help from you guys! so, I'm not yet very Xtreme at all.

I figure getting a new video card would be good to as I only have a GeForce3--whiiich really suits me alright as I hardly ever play games on my pc, or my xbox for that matter. I'm more into video/image/and-soon-to-be-music editing--as far as what I actually mainly use my pc for. But I think OCing and all will be a fun hobby.

[Major]

check out the rage3d forums you'll find alot of info there on modding the Radeons, I did the bios mod to a R9500pro and it worked great.

http://www.rage3d.com/board/forumdisplay.php?forumid=58

[CCW]

Originally posted by Sprocket
So whats the advantage of DirectX 9? Something to do with all that "Cinematic" stuff? So, none of the ATI cards have DX9 effects?

All ATi cards are direct x 9.0 compatible as the FX, its an API written by MS whcih allows for effetcs etc and the games this year, the good ones (Doom 3) will be using it

[Sprocket]

alright! thanks for all your help guys!

[hedge]

Originally posted by Sprocket
Whoa! That sounds like a GREAT idea! But how does it work???? His score jumped from 10 to 14 just with the hacked driver and bios flash??? And then with OCing he got to 17K??? I mean, I get the OCing part, but not the first... How could simply getting a hacked driver and bios flash make the thing run faster???? And if I do decide to do this, do I have to get that exact 9500 non-pro version made by Saphire??? Or does is work with other non-saphires... and does it work with pro's??? I guess I just need some more explanation.

Sprocket,

how this works is that the early 9500 non-pro cards from Saphire used the same pcb as the 9700 pro, just 4 of the 8 texture pipelines are being used. Using the hacked bios and drivers you can then turn on the other 4 piplines and boost the memory up to 256 bit. Then overclocking to 9700 pro speeds gave you full perfomance. However, this doesn't work on any card unless it is a Sapphire 9500 non-pro. Even then, only 1 out every 3 cards worked without any flaws. The 2/3 that didn't work often had dead pipelines and gave you a checkerboard look on your screen. The other problem is these cards are very hard to find now. They only made them for while until ati gave them a new pcb to work with. The only place I find them is on ebay and they more than likely failed this procedure and are now being sold. I would just save up for a real card and then overclock the heck out of it.

hedge

[CCW]

Originally posted by Sprocket
wow, so the 5200 is only as fast as a geforce 4mx 440? My Geforce3 card should be faster than that. I might look into getting a ti4200, soon I hope.

the FX is slightly faster because of the chipset and also, the 5200s come with 128MB memory which helped it, so thyre slightly faster, about 400odd 2001se points faster than a mx440

[Radea]

Originally posted by CCW
All ATi cards are direct x 9.0 compatible as the FX, its an API written by MS whcih allows for effetcs etc and the games this year, the good ones (Doom 3) will be using it

Doom3 is OpenGL. As for the FX, they use below-DX9 specs for shaders (12bit INT & 16bit FP instead of 24bit FP minimum) because the performance is a 100% dropoff if they do use DX9 specs. Story made short, the NV30/NV31/NV34 are all pretty bad.

[Charles Wirth]

I was lucky to get $350 for my first place 5800 FX Ultra

Damn thing has been sitting on the shelf for the passed month.

This means you guys can claim the #1 FX spot and not worry about me taking it back.

The card only pulled 585/1160... Makes you wonder what went wrong.

[CCW]

Originally posted by Radea
Doom3 is OpenGL.

it is???? ive read it is a DirectX 9.0 game....